Crazy Friday, Awesome Call, Tru Blocks the Sherpa

I was amazed the first time I met Francis Collins, longtime a hero of mine, Francis was gracious and kind when I met him. I also share a common bond with him. Francis' Intern at UNC was a guy by the name of Jim Sabetta, one of my instructors....


That being said, before I started HH, I watched webcast after webcast of the SACGHS. This was 2005 and 2006 I'm talking about. I did it because it was research. But I saw a guy on there who inspired me, who had such a sense of reason that the whole group respected. His name is Muin Khoury.....and I just met him Friday!

It turns out we also have people in common. But more importantly, we have a healthy respect for family history in common...... This guy and his team at the CDC have been researching Family History tools and the state of the science of family history pretty aggressively. This team is a heavyweight in the field and I am blown away by what they are doing.

Why?

It is the cheapest whole genome, phenome, metabolome scan we have today. The best part is that it covers multiple people with just one take!


They are actually researching the role effect of family history on behaviors and diseases! Something which NEEDS to be done, just like it does for SNP sandcans. Except of course, Family History costs nothing.....and has some good data already! Their FamilyHealthware methods have just been released! I will cover this further in depth in another post....

I am a little ad that I didn't get invited to GAPPnet, but am very excited to see what this conference in August on the state of the science in family history will bring.....More on this later


"Update" of TruGenetics.

While I WAS optimistic that a physician was at the helm of this company, I was reminded once again that we can be shady as well. It turns out, Dan Vorhaus AKA Genomicslawyer, read the fine print of the consent form. HT Daniel MacArthur too! It turns out Free is not so Free. Its now out that if you consent, you give the green light to TruGenetics sharing your results with companies and that your data goes into a database for "research" OK, that's strike one and strike 2......


The high heater came when I was following the COO of TruGenetics on Twitter......I challenged some of thet things he had said, like I do @Lindaavey @23andMx @Navi......But unlike those companies that stand up and defend themselves and agree to spirited debate with me.......@Achamedian the COO of TruGenetics "blocked" me!

Strike three TruGenetics.

You are out! I am deeply disappointed that you wouldn't debate me. It shows your TRU-Colors, to run and hide and also hide the fact that you are taking people's DNA for compensation of about 299 USD...... Not impressive. Nor is your call rate and error rate of 5%...... I guess you get what you pay for, when of course that product isn't hyped by large PR firms...


The Sherpa Says: Don't sign up for TruGenetics and if you do, at least you now know that they have a shady COO who runs from the questions and from the Sherpa!